1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the clearing of obstacles and mines from navigable sea channels and, more particularly, is concerned with a method for air delivery of ordnance and clearing of explosive mines and obstacles in a navigable sea channel.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An amphibious assault operation is a dangerous military mission which can easily result in a high rate of casualties. At the present time, several approaches to small scale distributed explosive mine and obstacle clearing systems are being evaluated to support an amphibious assault operation. Such approaches under consideration include one-dimensional (discontinous line charges) and two-dimensional (detonating cord nets and miniature bomblet arrays) systems.
However, such approaches appear to have several shortcomings. First, they require obstacles to be removed or substantially diminished prior to using such systems in mine clearance operations. Second, such approaches are limited in scale and lack the tonnage necessary for simultaneous obstacle and mine clearing in an over-the-horizon amphibious assault. Third, such small scale distributed explosive mine clearing systems may require significant amounts of time, numerous sequential deployments, and still may not create a safely cleared assault lane of adequate dimension for the fleet to safely traverse. Fourth, such small scale systems require the development of lane marking devices. In view that many of the small scale mine clearing systems, as well as channel marking devices, can only be used safely and effectively once the beach area is secured by friendly forces, their use by amphibious forces advancing by sea to the beach is not feasible. Fifth, current systems require amphibious forces to come into range of enemy fire for an extended period of time in order to deploy such current systems.
Consequently, a need still exists for an explosive mine and obstacle clearing method and additionally for a channel marking method for facilitating an amphibious assault which will overcome the shortcomings of the prior art without introducing new ones in their place.